74% of Americans view the war in Ukraine as important to US national interests
43% describe it as “very important”
59% of Americans describe the war in Ukraine as important to them personally when askedhttps://t.co/6k9MIs1tjU
— mozy1995 (@PatriziaScally) February 19, 2024
Former Rep. @AdamKinzinger urges Republican House members to force Speaker Johnson to allow a vote on Ukraine aid:
“I know it's uncomfortable and you might get a call from Donald Trump, but guess what, you’ll be able to look at yourself in the mirror for the rest of your life” pic.twitter.com/gZJ4wCmGC8
— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) February 18, 2024
Both presidential and Biden’s own history make obvious why he’s not likely to just drop out. https://t.co/pSJ9HMbbpv
— Philip Bump (@pbump) February 20, 2024
I’m finding Philip Bump’s weekly Washington Post “How to Read This Chart” newsletter at the really helpful. This week’s entry — “There’s an obvious reason Biden isn’t dropping out of a tied race” [Unpaywalled MSN version]:
… It’s useful to remember 2020 when considering Biden’s path toward his reelection bid this year. Then, he and his staff took a very even-keeled approach to the nomination and the general election, watching allies and supporters get spun up into a sense of crisis while they simply pressed forward. To some extent, Biden’s team got lucky in the way any candidate might, but either way, the approach worked. Biden won.
So you can understand why Biden’s team might similarly be waiting out this moment of consternation among his allies and other observers. The report on his possession of classified documents from special counsel Robert Hur triggered a new round of analysis about Biden’s age and how perceptions of his age would affect the general election and so on. There has been no shortage of musing about how, hey, maybe Biden could just step aside? Maybe the Democrats could just pretend that the past 10 months or so didn’t happen and start some truncated sort of delegate-assigning process right now with a new slate of candidates? Maybe this could be Trump-vs.-Someone-Else after all?
Prompting the expected response from Biden’s team: no real response at all. Yes, you get the inside-baseball stories about how the State of the Union address will be a reset, but there’s no sign Biden won’t be the Democrat on the ballot in November. Just like Biden kept his head down until the South Carolina primary in 2020 and so on.
This is not as wildly deluded an approach as some seem to think.
First of all, the race remains close. Yes, four years ago, Biden consistently led in national polling at this point and, yes, Democrats needed to win the national vote by a healthy margin to keep the electoral college close in 2016 and 2020. That’s all true. But it is not the case that Biden is obviously losing any of the states he won in 2020. In part, this is because there aren’t a lot of polls yet and, in part, this is because polling this far out isn’t that useful…
Polls aren’t designed to predict the results of a contest nine months in the future. They’re not even designed to predict the results of a close contest the next day. People are often far too willing to assume that a poll showing a candidate up by two points was “wrong” if the candidate loses by one point — as though the pollsters didn’t tell people about the margin of error.
Let’s assume, though, that recent polling showing Trump up a point or two nationally is broken-clock-twice-a-day-style exactly predictive of where the race would be in November if nothing else changed. The thing about that is … things will change!
The race isn’t actually set. That’s not to say that Nikki Haley will be the Republican nominee instead of Trump; despite the Haley campaign’s insistence that she might be — and some of the media’s willingness to entertain that idea for the sake of keeping people interested — it will take something other than standard campaign machinations for that to occur. Instead, saying the race isn’t set means that Americans aren’t tuned into the idea that Trump and Biden will once again be facing off in November and/or aren’t paying attention to the race just yet. Democrats’ negative views of Trump have softened in recent months. Will that still be the case after five months of relentless campaign ads?
What’s more, voters’ decisions are historically influenced by things that, in 2024, haven’t yet happened. Research presented in 2012 showed that the presidential popular vote margin was influenced most heavily by income growth in the second quarter of the election year — that is, the quarter that won’t begin until April 1…
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊😊😊
Baud
The notion that Democrats can go to the American people and say “we make decisions based on what polls and pundits say, trust us to fight for you” is so ludicrous that the media space feels like the Twilight Zone to me.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
ArchTeryx
@Baud: That’s because, as well known here, the media is not on our side. It’s a lot more our enemy than the Republicans’. They yowlp endlessly about the media, but that’s projection and working the refs, not reality.
rikyrah
Let’s root for Nimrata to stay in the race. The longer she stays in…he can’t get his hands on the RNC $$$$$
😎😂😂😂
rikyrah
@Baud:
It is absurd 😒😒
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Moscow Mike won’t allow a House vote b/c he’d lose the vote. There are at least 5 GQPers not totally within the insane, pro-Russia cocoon, who would support the aid package and probably not face political fallout back in their district.
And if he did, he’d never be able to step inside a multi-story building again without fearing which window he’d “fall” out of.
Frankensteinbeck
This musing exists entirely in your own damn news media as entirely imaginary wishful thinking, dude. You have created a class of Americans who don’t actually know the race is between Biden and Trump yet. You live in such a fantasy world that you personally are actually playing contrarian by suggesting that hey, maybe Biden and Democrats aren’t going to fulfill your friends’ idiot demand and the demand itself is a little overblown in wisdom.
Baud
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
We’d need more than 5 Republicans because of dissenters in our caucus. But I think we would have it.
Betty Cracker
Really? I hate that motherfucker as much as I ever did, and so do all the Democrats I know. That said, I can believe that less media attention on Trump reduced left-learning normies’ anxiety levels about the monster, which might be described as “softening” negative views.
NotMax
As tomorrow is Georgie’s birthday, a quaint old-timey recipe for Washington cake.
;)
hueyplong
@Baud: I don’t know. Our caucus has better discipline. When a win is mathematically possible, we get it.
John S.
Just when you thought things couldn’t get stranger… over in MAGA world, being held accountable for your actual crimes and suffering financial penalties through due process is the same thing as being unlawfully jailed and executed.
Trump compares himself to Navalny.
trnc
@Frankensteinbeck: No point in yelling at Phillip Bump for the failings of the media. His reporting is pretty solid.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Betty Cracker:
Exactly. Plus, I’d like to see the breakdown on that “Dems neg views are softening” statement. Which Dems? Where? I have no trust in the Beltway Press Corpse to analyze polling data in any way other than to fit their horse race narrative.
hueyplong
@Betty Cracker: My view won’t soften, even after he’s dead, a statement I’m itching to have tested.
TBone
Swing state concern.
https://www.spotlightpa.org/news/2024/02/pennsylvania-election-2024-director-turnover-voting-errors/
🤐
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
We really do benefit the more he’s in the news so political medias swooning infatuation with him helps us, inadvertently. He’s a mean spirited, petty asshole. He’ll remind people of that.
trnc
I’ll say it again. The strangest thing to me about DT’s support among self described he-men is how much they love him for whining.
NotMax
@hueyplong
And he’ll end up lying in state in the very place his minions ransacked.
“Please watch your step. Many people are ignoring the ‘No Spitting’ signs.”
TBone
@NotMax: very interesting. Made me hungry too 😊
Kay
I was hoping Biden would get a bump when “sporadic” Democratic voters realized he’s the nominee – IMO they don’t really understand or care how the primary process works so they though it was “unsettled” or something AND political media finally admitted the economy is good. But media took care of that with 24/7 blaring coverage of the Hur bullshit.
They worry me. They’re worse than they were in 2016. This is a real lemming-like pile on of Joe Biden and it doesn’t seem to let up for even a day. I don’t think there’s anything we can do about it, but boy it is frustrating that they just can’t seem to keep their huge thumbs off the scale.
I keep reminding myself how delightful it will be when we win and all these media genuises who put the whole wad on their boy Trump will be crestfallen.
TBone
@NotMax: if they lay him in state there, I will drop trow and do my duty.
hueyplong
@NotMax: Ugh, lying in state. It’s kind of like the pooch has already been screwed.
Betty Cracker
Speaking of Nikki Haley, I hope the surviving Koch Bro and other Haley-supporting fat cats keep her in the race past Super Tuesday because she’s saying things that Repubs who aren’t in the Trump cult need to hear, and they don’t listen when Democrats say it: (CBS News)
All true. In that same speech, Haley also played the military spouse card to take advantage of Trump’s ugly insinuations about her husband’s absence from the campaign trail.
Look, Haley is terrible, and she’s a giant phony. She repudiated Trump and congratulated herself on her own courage prior to crawling back at least twice before. I wouldn’t put it past her to do it again.
But while Trump is dominating rivals, clobbering DeSantis and Haley, his numbers with the most committed Republicans in the country — primary voters — are pretty weak. He’s locked up the cult vote, but plenty of other Republicans don’t want a Trump rerun, and Haley is articulating why.
Finally.
Kay
@trnc:
You must not know many self described he-men. They’re absolutely whiners.
Baud
@Kay:
Has that happened yet? The media seems to still be treating the primary like it’s anyone’s game.
Or maybe they’re starting to transition to Dems in smokey back rooms will replace him (with someone other than Kamala, fo course).
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@NotMax:
I wonder. Nixon didn’t and I would think the Orange Fart Cloud wouldn’t be given that honor.
The more I think about it, if Dems control one/both houses, no way. If the GQP controls both, definitely:
https://www.aoc.gov/what-we-do/programs-ceremonies/lying-in-state-honor
Of course if the GQP gains control of Congress, we’ve got more important things to worry about than Hair Furor’s body’s journey to the beyond.
Spanky
@NotMax:
If ‘twer up to me, he’d get the bin laden treatment.
Baud
@Kay:
Yes, it’s pretty shocking how pathetic they are. They compensate using violent rhetoric or actions, but they are otherwise sad sacks.
I’m glad I don’t have kids. I’d be worried about a son turning out like them.
Kay
@Baud:
I feel like we’re due for the “Democrats come home” bump. Biden doesn’t really need any (more) Republicans. I think he’s probably maxxed out the (relatively few) Republicans who reject Trump on ethics and character – they’re not going BACK to Donald Trump. Biden just needs to firm up Democrats. He has room to grow there. That’s where the media manipulating the narrative can matter, because normie Democrats very much pick up media narratives on cable tv and broadcast news. The MOST nervous Democrats in our local group are older Democrats who get most of their news from television. I always know MSNBC has been scaring the shit out of them when they frantically babble at meetings.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Regardless of how Cheeto Mussolino proceeds to a grave, let’s hope his final resting place gets the recent Limbaugh grave treatment:
https://www.riverfronttimes.com/news/it-appears-that-someone-urinated-on-rush-limbaughs-grave-39565153
OzarkHillbilly
Fragile little snowflakes.
SiubhanDuinne
Why even is Chris Matthews???
OzarkHillbilly
Both my sons turned out well. I suspect yours would too.
RAM
Trump has been relentlessly campaigning for President for the past five years, and all he’s managing is a current tie? Get back to me after the Biden/national Democratic campaign actually gets underway.
Kay
@Baud:
I love how people who don’t spend time around Trumpsters always say “but he dyes his hair and wears makeup!”
Are they familiar with these men? They all dye their hair and they wear what are essentially elaborate, expensive costumes – cowboy hats, high heeled boots, all that over-priced Harley-branded motorcycle merchandise, the guns they drape over themselves like accessories, the 90k pick up trucks.
They’re vain. Preening peacocks. Just like their leader.
Kay
@RAM:
True. Good point.
RaflW
Semi-OT: This move by corrupt shitbag Ken Paxton shows what a complete deal with the Devil the US Catholic Church has made over the last 40 years. Aligning w/GOP over abortion has ruined Catholic leverage on poverty, dignity of work, immigration & refugees and more.
elpasomatters.org: Texas AG Paxton moves to shut down El Paso’s Annunciation House, an El Paso Catholic nonprofit organization that has provided shelter and other services to migrants and immigrants for decades, alleging migrant aid is ‘human smuggling’.
Baud
@Kay: I hope they do come home. I’d rather be defeated than surrender.
Spanky
@SiubhanDuinne:
Is this the start of a Google autocomplete?
Why even is Chris Matthews …
OzarkHillbilly
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Pretty sure it doubles as a Bellefontaine outhouse.
Spanky
@Kay:
Are pinky rings still a thing?
Another Scott
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Dunno.
It’ll be kinda interesting to see what happens to W. GHWB was given a state funeral. W has pretty-much been erased by the GQP – his family may want to keep it that way. I wouldn’t be surprised if TIFG is pretty much erased when he’s gone as well. (Too many people want the big chair to do Weekend at Bernie’s with that guy for too long.)
But we’ll see.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@Kay:
They want our respect so much. Let’s not give it to them, no matter what happens in the election.
hueyplong
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Thanks for the link. My morning is made by the line about how Limbaugh is now, in Feb 2024, three years sober.
Jinchi
@John S.: Trump always portrays himself as the most persecuted man in history, well past the point of absurdity.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
I find your
lack offaith disturbing.Academic. We’ll never know.
Kay
@RaflW:
Two of the conservative Catholics in my book club are big Catholic school supporters and they’re mad that Ohio now hands anyone a voucher to attend any entity anyone calls “a school”.
The local Catholic school now has lots of low income, non Catholic students, thanks to vouchers. I told them “well, good. Now you’ll have a student population that is much more like the public schools that you bash – let’s see how you do”.
They’re all going to pull their kids out of private school because the poors are using vouchers and they don’t want their children exposed to low income kids. The vouchers they all lobbied for. It’s kind of delicious.
The Thin Black Duke
@Kay: I’m actually of the belief that after Trump wins the nomination, he’ll find a reason not to debate Biden. From the few news clips I’ve seen, the cognitive deterioration is painfully obvious. No matter how Trump-friendly the forum might be, Biden would still eviscerate him.
Baud
@The Thin Black Duke:
I agree. I’d be surprised if there was a debate.
Lyrebird
@Betty Cracker: With ya!
Totally.
This Dem might be screaming less because a few more news outlets are actually reporting on the former guy’s incoherence. but “views are softening” could be from something pretty skewed, and hey I see way more evidence for the Squeaker’s hold on his caucus softening.
I see a ton of special election results that show voters are sick of the MAGA and Freedum drama.
Sure we have to fight like hell, like last time, but I sure wish the got darn Putin supporting wishcasters in the media would shut up or lose their jobs.
Baud
@Kay:
👍
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Same with the Sanghis of India, they want to be loved and respected when they are actively undermining everything you stand for and believe in
I just don’t engage with them, if they don’t have your respect they are spoiling for a fight. Ignoring them leaves them foaming at the mouth.
Spanky
Speaking of state funerals yet to come, Jimmy Carter entered hospice care over a year ago, and he keeps on rocking. Amazing.
(I wanted to say “ticking”, but my phone insists on “rocking”. It must be right. )
Ramona
@Kay: I remember the daily sinking of his favorability numbers in 2020 when he started to give daily monologues in the WH press room to address the epidemic. He noticed it too and shut the * up!
Kay
@Spanky:
Big, chunky manly rings. People think the Trump vanity is urban, but there’s a rural variety vanity that is exactly the same. It’s just different costumes.
smith
And Haley’s own fundraising is doing pretty well for a challenger, with $11.5 million in January, compared to TFG’s campaign, which raised $8.8 million. One of his PACs took in the grand sum of $8508 last month, and his other funds aren’t doing much better. Meanwhile, Biden raised $43 million in January, and has raised the most of any Dem president ever at this point in the cycle.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Ignoring them is often a good call. Mockery and ridicule are tried and true methods also. I prefer quiet forms of contempt. Sometimes I think getting overly worked up about their outrages just gives them an opiod hit, although sometimes you have to, when they actively hurt innocent people.
Above all, they should not be viewed as our entertainment.
Baud
@Spanky:
Yeah, he’s the Energizer Bunny of presidents.
OzarkHillbilly
@The Thin Black Duke:
@Baud:
It would be malpractice for his handlers to allow him to, but the slings and arrows of “cowardice” just might goad trump into one.
Kay
@The Thin Black Duke:
I’ve said this a lot but Biden is a very good debater. The key is he’s completely familiar with and comfortable discussing just about any issue. He knows what he’s talking about. You see that kind of ease with older, experienced lawyers. They just have this whole set of experiences to draw from – almost nothing is new to them. A deep understanding.
He makes it look easy.
NotMax
Kay
The Worst Brats in Town.
;)
trnc
Sure, but people who can’t see their own faults tend to magnify those same faults in others, which should make his whining off the charts in their view.
Baud
@Kay:
If there is a debate, for a brief period leading up to it, the media will take a break from talking about Biden’s mental fitness in order to emphasize this very point.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: Haley’s attacks on Trump showed an intent to stay in the race for a while, maybe until the convention. I hope she does.
Trump’s attack on Major Haley may have may been a gross error. It certainly seem that way, but there may be a dogwhistle here. Trump’s isolationist base is encouraged to ask, what exactly are Major Haley, Joe Biden and the Globalists cooking in the Middle East?
Trump has been reticent about the Gaza War and its effects in the wider region. He probably hopes the situation gets worse so he can make some political hay out of it. It could get worse, and if it does Trump will be braying about it at the top of his lungs. In the meantime, he’ll contrast Haley’s Internationalism with his “America First” theme, and attacking her husband is part of that.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Another Scott: In my fantasy life, Trump dies in jail. After that, state funeral or not?
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: The wurst brats in town?
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Some of them are too stupid to understand subtle mockery
Silence works with family and relatives who insist on forwarding BJP IT cell forwards. I completely ignore them and they usually get the message. If they insist on arguing, I will take on their lies. They usually leave me alone after that.
Saving their souls is not my job. Husband kitteh tried in vain now he is out of both his extended family WhatsApp groups. I saved my self the aggravation of not joining them in the first place.
I totally ignore these WhatsApp forwards. I wish WhatsApp would give me a way of blocking the forwards, like Twitter does with retweets.
zhena gogolia
@Kay: I’m enjoying rewatching Northern Exposure and reveling in the brilliant performance by Barry Corbin as Maurice, the macho astronaut who loves show tunes and drives a golden Cadillac. He’s a kind of proto-Trumpster (although much nicer than them), but the character captures the phenomenon you’re identifying.
TBone
@Spanky: rocking is correct. On President’s Day, I posted an article about how the Allman Brothers helped elect him and how huge his gratitude to them is. Rock stars all around.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Kay:
Hmmm, would these kids also happen to have a certain amount of melanin in their skin cells? Probably just a coincidence if that’s the case, I’m sure.
That’s great that the usual people trotting out the usual excuses as to why they don’t send their kids to public schools, then manage to work the voucher grift angle to their advantage, have it come back and bite them in the ass.
Classic white entitlement “What’s good enough for me is not good enough for thee”. I see it play out around me daily.
Another Scott
@Ramona: “Cuomo’s getting all the good press! He’s taking all the attention away from ME!! Let’s do daily stuff too!!1”
He’s such a clown child.
🤡 🤡 🤡 🤡 🤡
Grr…,
Scott.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
They may not understand the content, but they will pick up on the attitude.
TBone
Another USSC ruling to watch for:
https://www.npr.org/2024/02/20/1230140189/supreme-court-homeless-camps-grants-pass-case-housing
Jinchi
@Kay:
Every recent election shows the lie between the media narrative and the state of the country. Democrats have been outperforming their expectations everywhere, especially since the Dobbs decision.
I just don’t believe anyone is falling for the spin that Biden is too old at 81, so we’re going to elect his 78 year old rival. Certainly not when that rival was directly responsible for the most unpopular ruling of the 21st century and promises to double down on it if he’s re-elected.
OzarkHillbilly
@Dorothy A. Winsor: In my fantasy he dies under a bridge in the Texas borderlands while trying to cook a sparrow over a rubbish fire.
Ramona
@Dorothy A. Winsor: If Trump is lain in state for his funeral, I’d go and vomit all over his bier!
Cacti
I see Joe’s UN Ambassador just vetoed another UNSC ceasefire resolution for Gaza.
At this point he’s just waving his wrinkled ass at young voters and Arab-American voters.
OzarkHillbilly
@zhena gogolia: Every time I see the “Complete Northern Exposure Collection” I have to hide my wallet. I’m hoping to some day find it in the $5 bargain bin.
Another Scott
@The Thin Black Duke: @Baud: @OzarkHillbilly:
He was whining in 2015/2016 that the debates were too long and refused one where whatshername was the moderator.
There won’t be any debates this time. That’s a sure-money bet, IMHO. He’ll hold one/several of his “big” rallies instead, if he’s still ambulatory at that point.
Cheers,
Scott.
Ramona
@Another Scott: Ooh yes! I’d forgotten all about the contrast between himself and Cuomo!
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: I am not so sure, they thought separate but equal was a compliment. It may also be the case that they didn’t get the context. So you may be right.
wjca
Buchanan’s place as only the second worst president is probably safe for a long time.
NotMax
@OzarkHillbilly
Also a menu item at O’Houlihan’s Gasthof?
;)
Another Scott
Meanwhile, … TheHill.com:
Good, good.
Eyes on the prizes.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Yeah, sometimes I think people don’t do mockery and ridicule well, and it comes off as disagreement or debate.
The Thin Black Duke
@Kay: Elections have consequences.
wjca
With luck, his own people will demand that he not be subjected to being “confined” there.
Steve in the ATL
@NotMax: if I were still in college I’d be getting a week off for Georgie’s birthday. It was perfect for ski trips. Was at the world championship in Vail in 1989 when an Austrian duke decapitated himself along down a closed, roped off slope. Obey the signs, people!
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Even worse they took it as a compliment when I compared their caste segregated microwaves at workplaces to the separate waterfountains in the south. This was my extremely early days of commenting on Indian political Twitter.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Haha, probably, but I’m not sure that will fly. There’s very little upside to the ridiculous media pile-on wrt Biden’s age, but we can reasonably hope that it lowers the bar.
Kay
@Jinchi:
What pundits would say, I think, is that Trump wasn’t on the ballot in any of those specials. Which to me is just crazy and bad thinking, because excluding all information UNLESS Trump is on the ballot means they are only looking at one election – 2016. It should be two elections – 2016 and 2020 but Trump seems to have convinced these nitwits that he won in 2020 so they don’t factor in what seems to me to be very important – Trump lost his re elect. That’s a real result. It’s not a poll. Their entire theory rests on his one win. I just think our theory is stronger.
Biden has to firm up his base. I know that’s a yawner and not as exciting as a “brokered convention” or whatnot, but it’s all he really has to do to win. He already has any Never Trumpers he was ever going to get. Now he just needs all the base Democrats. That’s his margin right there.
danielx
Whence comes this idea, from Bump’s imagination? Interviews in diners? Or freshly pulled from his ass?
My opinion is at least as valid as his, and I detest that orange sonofabitch more with every passing day.
schrodingers_cat
@Another Scott: Now its peace in the middle east or bust for these non-voting performance artists. They are no longer kvetching about student loans.
schrodingers_cat
@danielx: I have blocked his nym from Twitter, I don’t hate him. I only have contempt for him.
NotMax
@Kay
it’s not Biden’s first rodeo. I remain confident he knows what he’s doing.
Chris
Is the reason that no president, unless he’s either dead or facing an LBJ-level disaster, ever refuses to run for a second term when it’s available to him? And that, contrary to four years of furious wishcasting by our glorious media, Biden running again is in fact the completely normal decision and not the inexplicable aberration that pretty much all media coverage assumes it to be?
“Wow, his numbers were below his competitor’s for a while, but he’s still running! How crazy is that?” Jesus fucking Christ, is there ever one president who wouldn’t have thrown in the towel after his first term if this was the standard?
danielx
@NotMax:
Spitting is the least of it. There will have to be an armed guard on his grave 24/7, otherwise whatever gilded monstrosity serves as his tombstone will be corroded within a month because of all the people pissing on it.,
wjca
This.
And one hopes the Biden team is not only gearing up to goad him into it, but preparing how they will deal with the inevitable sabotage demands around how the debates should be set up.
Kay
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
No, in this county they are white children. Poor children, but white. They’re complaining that there are “no” Catholics in the kindergarten. They literally pushed vouchers on every family in the county – they were eagerly promoting the anti trans/gay Rufo bullshit about public schools- and now they’re mad that low income families who think “private” is always better than “public” took them up on it.
I knew it would happen. What the low income families will find is that in this county the public schools are objectively better than the private schools – they pay teachers better so get better quality hires, they have economies of scale that allow them to offer more, especially for students who might struggle or are higher performing (they do better with both extremes) so they’ll flood back. Hopefully we’ll still have a public school system for them to come back to.
hueyplong
@danielx: I can’t adequately articulate how much joy it gives me to visualize home page click-bait pics of sour-faced MAGAs standing guard over the entrance to his gaudy tomb.
Chris
@Kay:
I mean, the issue with Trump is that, unless I’m recalling incorrectly, he overperformed his poll numbers in both 2016 and 2020. He won one and lost one, but did better than expected on both. For whatever reason, the people who come out of the woodwork for him but no one else seem to be the ones that polls have the most trouble picking up.
So people aren’t wrong to say that his not being on the ballot means those races aren’t telling the full story, or that this is worth worrying about. It’s just that pundits take it for granted that the meaning of this is “Biden has lost, and should probably drop out now,” which was always going to be their answer regardless of what any numbers said.
NotMax
@danielx
“Whose palms do we have to grease to get a waiver on height restrictions of pyramids in Florida?”
//
schrodingers_cat
Question for the hive mind is 64 G enough memory for an Ipad?
Eyeroller
@schrodingers_cat: It’s “enough” but I’d recommend 256G.
OzarkHillbilly
@wjca: I suspect it’s wishful thinking on my part, tho all the more reason for repeating the challenges and insults because it will make rump even more unhinged than he already is.
Lyrebird
Well I gotta say that the work you have put in, talking to voters about reproductive rights, is on my list to thank the Spaghetti Monster for. Betty C and Anne Laurie are too, of course!
About the media, I did not watch a clip someone put up of Katy Tur, the self same press person who got to see some of the wannabe dictator’s fascist leanings inciting a crowd against her, saying , oh isn’t it unfair to go after him with this or that lawsuit? VOMIT EMOJI HERE.
About those voters, I see signs of hope, not signs to slack off, but signs of hope as more of the socially conservative women who were also raised to avoid mentioning icky bleeding-related topics say more, vote for referenda more. There are the active and willing repressers, too, but there are other people who know the newspapers sell a lot of horseshit and know that the dithering about “weeks” and “risk” helps more women die young.
wjca
Better a bridge in Siberia. Discovering that his hero Putin shares his one-way approach to loyalty.
schrodingers_cat
@Eyeroller: What is the the extra memory good for. I have full fledged laptop and a desktop. This is going to be my on the go artist pad and writing device.
Yarrow
@Jinchi:
This is very true. I was at a meeting last night (not a political meeting) where the subject of the election came up. Most of these people are Democrats and the women were very worried about the election because of Dobbs and abortion. But, they were despairing that people have forgotten about it, have moved on and it won’t affect their vote. I gave example after example of elections where the Dem candidate won and where Dobbs was a factor. They had no idea. They are mostly normies and have just been seeing whatever is on the news, or however they consume their news.
OzarkHillbilly
@schrodingers_cat: It’s indicative of my ludditeness that I first read that as “Is $64G enough for an Ipad?”
schrodingers_cat
@OzarkHillbilly: 64GB, my bad.
BTW I added a full set of Faber Castell Albrecht Durer Watercolor pencils and 63 Pitt Artist Pens also by FaberCastell in auctions on eBay. At a fraction of their retail price. They are awesome!
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Kay:
Crossing my fingers. The entire neoliberal voucher/choice crap has been simply another manifestation of drowning gubmint in a bathtub: dry up public school funding has always been a GOP goal because a dumb population is an easily controllable one.
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
In what world? He’s as dangerous as he ever was.
Jackie
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: The Capitol would be invaded by red MAGA hats again. Ugh
But should TIFG be found guilty in the J6 trial, I don’t see him being honored with a State ceremony.
The Thin Black Duke
@Yarrow: There’s a great scene from Lessions in Chemistry when after Elizabeth Zott does the first episode of her cooking show “Dinner at Six”, every corporate guy in the TV station is openly contemptuous and dismissive of the program. “Cancel it”, they say.
But then they get quiet when the room is filled with the sounds of telephones ringing and they’re astonished that all of the calls are from enthusiastic women saying how much they enjoyed Elizabeth Zott’s show.
Thanks to Dobbs, I believe a lot of men in the United States are going to be surprised that the escalating numbers of calls from pissed-off women are coming from inside the house.
rikyrah
@John S.:
Absolutely disgusting.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
That’s storage, not memory.
Depends who much you need. If you have a lot of cloud storage, you may not need on-device storage, unless you’re often without Internet connection.
rikyrah
@Kay:
This is true. Which is why I want Nimrata to stay in for as long as possible. His inability to get his hands on the RNC’s funds, combined with the looming deadline for filing an appeal in NY, will drive him even more bonkers.
NotMax
@schrodingers_cat
Depends on what you intend to use it for. 64 is going to be pokey for graphics intensive tasks. IMHO 128 is a minimum sweet spot for garden variety usage (as said above, 256 will be even less stressful).
“You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time but you can’t fool RAM.”
;)
JaneE
Trump is getting loonier every day. Enough that Democrats highlighting it should start to see some people wonder what they would be voting for. MAGA are the vocal minority, and the more outlandish and unamerican Trump sounds the more long term Republicans realize he is not their kind of president after all.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Yes you are right. I am multitasking right now. I do have a decent amount of cloud storage. And this will be my secondary (or tertiary device).
schrodingers_cat
@NotMax: Its storage space not RAM, as Baud pointed out. I mistyped.
topclimber
@Geminid: The gross error may have been to piss off Haley.
It’s one thing to call her birdbrain. It’s another to mess with her man while proving once again his disdain for the military.
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
You are right. She is a phony. But, she’s a useful phony right now. The more unhinged he will become because he can’t get his hands on the RNC money…the crazier his rantings will become.
You know he’s looking at the fundraising numbers for the DNC, and thinks that he should be able to set the same pile of money from the RNC. But, he can’t do it, because Nimrata’s still in the race.
rikyrah
@RaflW:
Get the ENTIRE PHUCK OUTTA HERE!!!
That muthaphucka!!
Steve in the ATL
@Kay:
I did kindergarten through college at small, almost all white probate schools, and the older I get the more obvious it is that I and my school mates would have been well served by spending time with low income people.
We received excellent academic educations (which is not true of many private schools) but were woefully unprepared for the real world.
RaflW
@John S.: I’m not interested in going over to that Axios item, but knowing what we do about TFG’s fragile ego, it’s eating him up that a dead guy is getting better press and more posthumous accolades that Donnie is right now, alive.
Of course, there is a potential solution here, dazzlehands.
Miss Bianca
@Chris: Um…LBJ?
(Yeah, yeah, I know…fuck LBJ).
Still, I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if he’d just brazened out and run against Nixon in ’68. He might have actually won. And whatever you think about LBJ, I refuse to think he would have been a worse POTUS second-term than Nixon was first term.
Juju
I haven’t read through the comments yet, so I don’t know if anyone has made a similar comment, but I am surprised that so many people have been shocked by Trump’s lack of comment and then the inane comments he finally did make about Navalny’s murder. Right now Trump is desperately trying to get blanket immunity for everything that’s done while he or anyone else is president just so he can do the same thing that Putin just did if he does ( cringe) become president again. I imagine he didn’t comment sooner because it took him that long to figure out a way he could make comments that directed attention to him and not Navalny.
Eyeroller
@Baud: On an iPad your cloud will be iCloud and you only get 5GB free with that. One can get apps for say Dropbox, but then you have to go and manually delete files to free the space, and it is a bit of a pain to do that on a device. Apps can quickly fill up space even if you don’t initially plan to install many of them. Also, some iPads (including the Air) don’t have much RAM, by current standards (8GB), so they’ll swap to the disk. One can always scrimp on storage — as I said, 64GB is “enough,” but you may end up downloading things from iCloud regularly. My approach is to get the most storage/RAM (you don’t get to choose the RAM with an iPad) you can afford. I think I paid about $100 to go from 64 to 256–they no longer offer 128 AFAICT, which is probably what I would have chosen had it been available.
Omnes Omnibus
@rikyrah:
Let’s not call her Nimrata. We don’t like it when they do it to people on our side.
Geminid
@Miss Bianca: I think Johnson would have won in 1968. Hubert Humprey almost won. My theory is that Johnson believed the job would kill him if he stuck it out. He’d had one major heart attack, and a second one was only a matter of time.
OzarkHillbilly
Not even, seeing $64G was so ludicrous even my corroded brain knew that couldn’t be right. Congrats on the new pens and pencils. I know I will enjoy them.
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: Agreed. As an aside, Nimrata or Namrata means humility, which is the opposite of what she is. Just like Vivek which means reason.
RaflW
@Betty Cracker: Haley is laying a roadmap for how other Republicans could go after their awful standard-bearer (lookin’ at you, Mike Pence. Maybe even Thom Tillis).
But she’s polling only a bit above dirt among GOP faithful, and elected Rs see that and scamper back to their hidey-holes.
Anyway, good for her for speaking the truth (finally). I do not look forward to her involvement in the 2028 cycle, since her policies & politics are still total GOP garbage.
schrodingers_cat
@OzarkHillbilly: I will. FC products are so beautiful. I love to just look at them and feel them in my hands. My precious…
Kathleen
@Baud: I’m pleasantly surprised to see a WaPo political reporter providing actual data driven, intelligent analysis. I’m still not renewing my subscription.
rikyrah
@Kay:
The vouchers are good for them, but, not ‘the poors’?
rikyrah
@The Thin Black Duke:
He only went to the debate in 2020 because he was trying to give Biden COVID and kill him.
rikyrah
@schrodingers_cat:
Engaging…not looking for a fight with them, but, refuse to tiptoe around them.
RaflW
@Baud: I feel like I haven’t heard a peep from gellato-prince Phillips in a couple weeks. I wonder if the VC folks have turned off his cash tap.
Michigan is in 6 days, and super (duper!) Tuesday is in 13 days, so the media bullshit factory might have to calm down after March 5. One can hope.
Juju
@NotMax: Raisins ruin everything.
The Thin Black Duke
@rikyrah: Damned if you ain’t on point.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Juju: you and my daughter can agree not to eat it.
Kay
@Steve in the ATL:
I think it absolutely benefitted my kids. My youngest son brought a friend home from 1st grade, a little boy, and I took them for ice cream in the car. I opened the garage door from inside the car and new pal told me he wants one of those when he grows up – he thought a garage door opener was the heights of success – adorable person :)
rikyrah
@Spanky:
I think the outpouring once Carter passes is going to stun the GOPers.
They have gotten a caricature of Carter frozen in their minds…
they don’t grasp how beloved he is.
OzarkHillbilly
@schrodingers_cat: Heh. When I said, I know I will enjoy them. it wasn’t a typo. Glad I am that you are enjoying them, but when does my turn come?
SiubhanDuinne
@Juju:
I’m fine with raisins as long as I can eat them straight from the Sun-Maid box, the way god intended. But as an ingredient in something else? ~~SHUTTER~~ Nope.
Kay
@rikyrah:
The vouchers were supposed to attract only high class but temporarily down on their luck Catholics :)
These are not the most plugged in and practical people in the world.
Steeplejack
@Omnes Omnibus:
Agreed. Plus it’s “Nimarata.”
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: I don’t tiptoe. I take them on if its my friends and relatives. I have managed to change some perceptions.
But paid BJP trolls are another level of hell. They pick fights just to waste your time. Using screenshots to refute their fuckery and blocking them is the only way.
Miss Bianca
@Steve in the ATL: Whereas I, growing up in lily-white Grosse Pointe, the home of red-lining, profited immensely from going to private school from 7th grade on, in ways that I didn’t begin to appreciate until years later.
Because in addition to a rigorous education that prepared me for college in ways that my public-school peers could only dream of – and the trauma of being savagely picked on by the Upper-Class (white) Twits/Twats of the Year – I got something else: diversity.
Because my school drew “the best and the brightest” from all over the metro Detroit area, I went to school with a FAR more diverse student body than I would have in Grosse Pointe public school. (And, with one notable exception, none of *these* kids ever bothered to give me grief.)
Every sort of ethnic or racial or religious minority in the Detroit area was represented at my snobby, WASP-Y private day school. That’s something I have learned to be grateful for, even if *that* social advantage wasn’t the sort of social advantage my parents were seeking for me there!
rikyrah
@Kay:
this is where that 40 years of government experience – where you actually want to use government to HELP PEOPLE – comes in.
You learn about the issues, because you want to be able to help people.
No Republican with his level of time in the government can do it, because they’ve spent their entire time in government trying to HURT PEOPLE.
Baud
@Kay:
Vouchers = tax rebates for high earners.
schrodingers_cat
@OzarkHillbilly: Come and visit. Its beautiful in the Frost country in spring. I will my share my art supplies and you can give me some carpentry advice. I am in the process of redoing my closets. The previous owners had installed horrid wire shelving which is ugly and impractical.
Yarrow
@SiubhanDuinne: I like raisin cinnamon bread. What about rum raisin ice cream?
rikyrah
@Another Scott:
CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP
Betty Cracker
@RaflW: Trump supporters manipulated the Nevada caucuses this year, pitting the orange fart cloud against a nobody. He won a Saddam Hussein-like “victory” in that race with 99.1%.
But in IA and NH, his percentage was in the low 50s. Looks like he might crack 60% in SC, but I still say those are weak numbers for a de facto incumbent and cult leader. Maybe some day the political press will investigate the lack of enthusiasm, but I’m not holding my breath.
schrodingers_cat
People who diss raisins, have you guys tried golden raisins or craisins? They are far better than black raisins.
Both are great in biryani (layered rice dish) and pilaf paired with cashews.
Kay
@rikyrah:
My middle son, the electrician, went to the local Catholic school for 2 years because he kept getting in trouble in the public school. Then he just got in trouble in the Catholic school. I knew the school wasn’t the issue, but you give it your best shot :)
My wealthy mother in law then paid to send him to a boarding school for two years where he did absolutely no schoolwork but had lots of friends. The boarding school told me he was a “leader” and I said “leader of what?” He graduated by the skin of his teeth. Not one credit to spare. I adored my mother in law but she was a very…visual person and he’s good looking so she just couldn’t believe that he would do poorly at school. She thought attractive people are just….best :)
Soprano2
But…but….but….this is how they always lobby for vouchers, saying that we need to give poor parents the same chance to leave bad schools that everyone else’s children have. Are you telling me they’re lying? That their true goal is for all the vouchers to go to people who can already afford to send their kids to expensive private schools and at the same time bleed the public schools of money? Surely that cannot be the case! /s/s/s/s/s/s/s I’m surprised they haven’t raised the tuition high enough that the poor kids can’t afford to go to those schools. I bet they still keep the special ed kids out by any means they can.
Uncle Cosmo
Nor should you or any of us. Publicly-reported political polling is irremediably broken as any sort of gauge of public opinion. Even if it claims to accurately assess public opinion, its actual aims for many years have been drastically different. At best it functions as clickbait for its publicizers, at worst as push-polling to foist the message(s) promoted by its sponsors onto the body politic.
Typing as an unfrocked-via-retirement applied statistician** I am amorally certain that many dedicated survey researchers have agonized long and hard over how to devise polls to obtain results that accurately reflect public sentiments in the age of cell phones, caller ID, and rising respondent dishonesty. And I speculate they have succeeded far better than the layman suspects.
But you and I will never see those results. Accurate polls are taken at the behest of campaign organizations that absolutely want to know what their target population(s) actually think, for internal use only; their sponsors never, never, ever want the results (obtained at great pains and no small expense) to be seen by anyone without proper clearance and an approved need-to-know, most especially their opponents.
** Disclaimer: Two generations back, I designed and conducted a political poll whose results significantly affected the political history of the Baltimore metro region.
OzarkHillbilly
@schrodingers_cat: Some day I’ll get to MA and it’s neighbors.
I wouldn’t think of it, I don’t do art*, I just enjoy it.
*I don’t call what I make art, it’s just craftsmanship.
catclub
I strongly suspect it is his more competent this time campaign team that is insisting on no debates. I am sure Biden will taunt him that he is afraid to debate and he might insist against he will, against his campaign team’s judgment.
catclub
@Soprano2:
so where will they go? Out of state?
SiubhanDuinne
@Yarrow:
Cinnamon bread? Yes indeed! Rum ice cream? Absolutely!
Leave the raisins out. More room for the cinnamon, or rum. IMO.
Soprano2
@Kay: I heard a story about private/religious schools in a state sometimes requiring the parents of their students to apply for vouchers. Is that what you’re talking about?
Miss Bianca
@SiubhanDuinne: All of the above, *and* rice pudding.
So there.
ETA: And Raisin Bran just wouldn’t be the same without…y’know. Raisins.
What? You mean I’m the only grown-ass adult in America who still eats the occasional bowl of Raisin Bran? Phuck outta here!
SiubhanDuinne
@schrodingers_cat:
Yes, actually I’ve had and enjoyed both of those dishes. When I think of “raisins” I am indeed thinking of the dark variety. The kind that, if they’re in cookies, fool you into thinking they’re chocolate chips and give you trust issues for life.
SiubhanDuinne
@Miss Bianca:
I love rice pudding sans raisins.
Juju
@schrodingers_cat: More memory is always better.
OzarkHillbilly
I love raisins anyway they come. It’s a dirty job but somebody has to stand up for the lowly raisin.
Thor Heyerdahl
So many raisin varieties. All delicious.
https://ratinkhosh.com/types-of-raisins/
Chris
@Miss Bianca:
I said a president facing an LBJ-level disaster, meaning a president facing the kind of loss of public confidence and open revolt from his own party that LBJ faced over Vietnam.
He clearly would have made a better president than Nixon. I actually agree with you that he might have done better than Humphrey, but that wasn’t as clear at the time, if only because the “never apologize and recognize error, it’s a sign of weakness” ethos pioneered by Republicans after Watergate wasn’t there yet.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Uncle Cosmo:
That piece just went into my electronic clip file.
Geminid
@OzarkHillbilly: Puts new meaning into the saying:
Juju
@SiubhanDuinne: The thing I don’t understand is chocolate covered raisins. Why would anyone waste chocolate on raisins? Why? Raisins ruin cinnamon rolls, and raisins bread? Again, why?
Ksmiami
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: the Dems will force a discharge petition- they will have to.
Ksmiami
@Miss Bianca: did u go to University Liggett? Great school
Juju
@Miss Bianca: A weird thing about me in regard to raisins is that the one thing with raisins that I will eat is Raisin Bran, but I’ve had my serving of it for this decade.
Rice pudding without raisins is bleh. Raisins make it more bleh. I take care of my mother, and she loves rice pudding. I have to leave the room when she eats rice pudding.
Citizen Alan
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: The RWNJ sister is a retired teacher with two 20-something children who are also teachers. There are times I want to ask her point blank why she hates her own children so much.
rikyrah
@Omnes Omnibus:
I will continue to do it, because she’s someone who threw away her government name and her parent’s religion to chase White Supremacy for the past 20+ years.
Nikki is White acceptable.
NIMARATA is not
Maybe I’ll stop when she stops insulting Black people at every possible turn.
wjca
Delighted at how many people won’t be going after my oatmeal raisen cookies!
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Juju: all this hating on raisins. They’re grape. [great]
wjca
Some of them are quite sincere in their belief that private schools would be better for poor children. Just not their private schools!
Juju
@wjca: Oatmeal raisin cookies are part of the reason I hate raisins. I thought they were chocolate chip cookies.
wjca
No, the problem is chocolate chips masquerading as raisens, and thus spoiling what should have been an oatmeal raisen cookie.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Juju: childhood trauma?
Juju
@wjca: That’s just wrong. Perhaps you should seek some professional help with your problem. 😉
wjca
@Juju: people who love chocolate (whether chips or otherwise) are a trial for all right-thinking people….
wjca
I suppose it’s like wine. Clearly the best thing done with juice from grapes is Welch’s.
Jinchi
@The Thin Black Duke: I’ll be very surprised if Biden and Trump debate one another. I don’t think it would serve any purpose. We all know who these men are.
And the last time they debated Trump and his family tried to take Biden out by exposing him to Covid.
Kay
@Soprano2:
No. They had big banners in front of the school advertising vouchers, and the public school has to offer “options” – tell parents about vouchers- in return the private school does… absolutely nothing to contribute to the public school community. We exist to serve them, apparently. This “partnership” only works one way. Private school students can demand services from public schools but public school students cannot demand entry into private school programs. The benefit of the partnership only run to one set of students- the private school students conservatives prefer.
So I’m pleased they’re all bent out of shape that their latest grift to cash in on public funds has ruined the exclusive nature of their school – maybe they should have put some actual thought into it and looked arond at their own community- who did they think these students were going to be?
dirge
Drop him off on the Kremlin’s doorstep. Bet you could fit a coffin with a JDAM. No need to wait; do it now.
schrodingers_cat
@SiubhanDuinne: I hate them in cookies. I also hate peanut butter in cookies and chocolate.
Kristine
@OzarkHillbilly:
Late to the party as usual, but another vote for Team Raisin. Didn’t care for them growing up, but now I’m a fan.
Princess
@The Thin Black Duke: I agree. I have been sayong for months there will be no debates because Trump will refuse. He’ll make all sorts of impossible crazy conditions then tell us Biden is the one who has refused. We need to be ready for that.
Miss Bianca
@Ksmiami: Why, yes, how did you guess? I mean, I could have been talking about Detroit Country Day or Cranbrook (except, ew, Romney went there).
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: I don’t blame you. She and Vivek really piss me off with their sucking up to white supremacy.
Jinchi
@Omnes Omnibus: Does Haley actually object to being called Nimrata?I always thought Nicky was just a friendly short version, like calling someone Jimmy instead of James.
I thought it was the mocking mispronunciations that were considered offensive.
schrodingers_cat
@Jinchi: I think it is her official middle name IIRC. Also many Sikhs have first shortened names like that (Johnny, Paulie, Jassi for Jaswinder etc.)
Juju
@Mr. Bemused Senior: Discovering what you thought was a delicious and much loved chocolate chip cookie was in fact an oatmeal raisin cookie is the kind of thing that can scar a person for life. Also, my mother bought the store brand lunchbox sized boxed raisins, which were like eating wrinkled spoiled fruit flavored pebbles. If I didn’t eat the raisins and brought them back home in my lunchbox, they would stay in my lunchbox until I ate them or the school year ended. It took me until I was in the 5th grade to figure out I could just throw the raisins away.
Juju
@wjca: I disagree. I think we’re delightful.
Jinchi
@schrodingers_cat: I never understand why Nicky thinks it’s smart to blow that dog whistle. No one who responds to it will ever vote for her.
rikyrah
@Jinchi:
THIS THIS THIS
gvg
@wjca: I suspect that the lobbyists are administrators and owners that would benefit from more students and $. Some individuals are sincere. Some others never thought about it as they paid and didn’t think there would be results, didn’t expect anything to happen.
schrodingers_cat
@OzarkHillbilly: BTW I got bunch of carpenter’s pencils at Home Depot. I love their line quality. So cool.
You may get a kick of Super Rae Dizzle making art out of hardware store supplies!
Paul in KY
@The Thin Black Duke: Then we slag him and mock him every freaking day for that.
I do think he will. His ego and narcissism will not let him make that decision.
Paul in KY
@wjca: God, I hope so!!!
Paul in KY
@Miss Bianca: He was going to have to run a competitive primary against at least RFK. Not sure whether Humphrey would have run or not in that scenario.
Agree he’d have been better than Nixon.
wjca
Not at all sure that opinion on the left would have agreed with you there. At least in 1968, fury at Johnson over Vietnam was huge. By the time Ford was president, it would have been a different story.
Paul in KY
@schrodingers_cat: My wife turned me on to them. I love them. She also has some she soaks in gin. Supposed to help with joint pain.
Paul in KY
@Chris: Humphrey would have been a better president than LBJ II.
Paul in KY
@schrodingers_cat: I’m with you. No freaking peanut butter!!!
Paul in KY
@wjca: I was there. IMO, he still would have been better than Nixon & I think would not have taken 4 long years to get the Hell out of Vietnam.
KrackenJack
@Spanky: Exactly what I was thinking.
catclub
@wjca:
I am reminded of the left now who want to reject Biden in favor of TRUMP? to restrain Netanyahu?
Nixon and Kissinger, total peaceniks.
Chris
@Paul in KY:
The fact that Nixon had to sabotage peace talks in 1968 shows that he’d taken the anti-war criticism on board and was making a good faith effort to get out. So, yeah. He’d have gotten us out sooner, and then there’s all the domestic ways he would likely have been better than Nixon.
sab
@schrodingers_cat: I do notice that nobody has a problem with E Jean Carroll being Jean.
evodevo
@Kay: Well, there’s also the “good looking” factor lol – my son just barely got along in HS, graduating with a C- average even though he had the mental equipment to do MUCH better (ask me how often I wanted to hit him with a clue-by-four ). He had good looks, so the teachers gave him a pass. Didn’t quite work at the college level, however. Flunked out of UK after a year of partying on our dime and student loans. Took him till he was 22 and met a girl who didn’t take any guff for him to actually live up to his potential, and finish up college. Handsome only gets you so far…but boys take awhile to figure this out…
evodevo
@SiubhanDuinne: LOL me too…I will eat them out of their little boxes, but KEEP THEM OUT OF MY COOKIES!! And why Keebler’s etc. quit making choc chip oatmeal cookies I don’t know. Really like them…my mother finally figured out that she had to make TWO batches of oatmeal cookies, one with and one without raisins, because I absolutely wouldn’t touch them when growing up.
Manyakitty
@OzarkHillbilly: dreamy 😍
wjca
I was there, too. Not arguing on the relative merits of Humphrey, LBJ, and Nixon. Just saying that, had Johnson run, we might well have seen a lot (at least, enough) on the left sitting out, or voting 3rd party, rather than vote for him. There was a lot of very bad feeling over Vietnam; no matter that Nixon was worse on the issue.
Sort of like if the Palestinian Americans abandon Biden and get Trump, with his well known views on Muslims. Refusal to take “less bad” can get “more bad”.
EDT catclub got there first
Paul in KY
@wjca: I don’t think 18 year olds had the vote then. Also many, many people who grew up in Great Depression and just pulled D lever automatically. Think he would have taken Texas.
Chris
@wjca:
Yeah, but isn’t that exactly what we ended up getting with Humphrey anyway? (I wasn’t there, please note, but my impression was that Humphrey got tarred as LBJ-by-association anyway).
Ruckus
This democrat’s view of donald j shitsinpants has not changed in a lot of decades. He is a less than useless human being that inherited a lot of money, some of which was supposed to go to his siblings, and thinks his shit doesn’t stink. But that’s only because he’s use to his diaper being full of it. Which is marginally funny because so is he. Useless and incompetent people have run for president – and likely some of them won. But this one is the one that is worse than useless and smells like – what’s that word? I label him ShitForBrains for good and valid reasons.
Ruckus
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
“Dems neg views are softening” is coming from the polls and only shows up when the pollsters take a bit of a break. Also as others have stated his mental capability, which was never all that and a box of cookies, has been declining at a rather rapid rate. Not everyone who gets to his age falls that far (for him possibly only a short decline is a big enough one for him to be considered absolutely, totally mentally incompetent – he was never that far away from it….) or that fast but for some it comes earlier than normal and can come on rather rapidly. I’m the oldest in my extended family and I have seen the decline a few times, parents, aunts/uncles, grandparents. It can progress slowly or rapidly.
Kayla Rudbek
@schrodingers_cat: saving images! I have a lot of photos going back years, and I also have an app called Knit Companion that basically sits over my knitting pattern PDF files, so whenever I upgrade my iPad, I get the one with the largest GB available.
Ramona
@Miss Bianca: Hi, I’m Ramona. I’m an adult and I love, love, love Raisin Bran!
I love raisins in almost everything! All kinds of raisins, black, gold, currants! Yum!
Ramona
@Juju: If I could get milk-free* chocolate raisins, I’d double my weight and I’m already 1.6 times my maximum healthy weight.
Milk allergy. I’ve scarfed down the regular Raisinets in the past and suffered the consequent sinusitis but no more milk for me any more though I would kill for the chance to eat cheese (no need for raisins with cheese).